Eatin' Memphis

For a taste of this town, try the Tastin' Round Town Tour

By Susan Ellis

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Silkes tends to shuffle them in what he says is a “deck of cards” approach, so that if an event is happening at the Orpheum, he might skip the Majestic, which does brisk business during shows. Basketball games at the FedExForum, too, will cause detours.

Silkes, who’s worked developing restaurant concepts, is ever mindful of what is going on in both the front and the back of the house of restaurants. When he has a large group coming in, he’ll call ahead. He makes sure to tip well. With some restaurants, he has a contract dictating what dish will be served, with a price per-head. He says that while some restaurants don’t quite understand what the tour’s about, others have contacted him to ask that they be included.

BBQ Tasting, Tastin’ ‘Round Town’s most popular tour, breaks the usual script. While the other tours can be done on foot around downtown, this one calls for wheels. Silkes also expands his talk to include the history of barbecue and myriad barbecue-facts offshoots involving dry rub, family traditions, the meaning of a meat’s “bark,” the role of sauce, and how some folks in the area are breaking the mold.

The barbecue tour also happened to shake up Silkes’ own beliefs. For the tours, Silkes says he strives to choose a distinctive dish from each restaurant. For the Bar-B-Q Shop, that dish is barbecue spaghetti, but Silkes, as a proud Italian American, wasn’t willing to accept it. He remembers saying to owner Eric Vernon, “I don’t want to be insulting, but it sounds horrifying.”

Vernon urged him to try the dish, and he was so taken with the smokiness of the pork and the way the noodles were prepared that he says his chin hit the floor.

These days, Silkes is a full-on barbecue spaghetti convert preaching the gospel to others. He tells the story of one of his tour group members from California who mistook the noodles that had been browned from sauce and oil as a healthy wheat alternative. He corrected her right away. “Honey, this is Memphis,” he says. “We don’t care about our health. We don’t care about your health.”

Silkes says that he has never had a tour member lose his lunch, though he’s seen them slow down after the fifth stop, particularly during the barbecue tour. He tells them, “You’ll be all right” and coaxes them to that last stop, the Cozy Corner.